There is some rare good news today in American politics. ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a right wing organization dedicated to bringing neoliberal policies, and worse to US state governments, has lost a major donor.

SAP, a German-based firm with regional offices in the U.S., said Thursday that it will "immediately disassociate itself" from ALEC, the conservative coalition of state legislators and corporations that has come under fire in recent months for its opposition to environmental regulations.

"SAP has decided to immediately disassociate itself from ALEC," a company representative said in a statement given to the left-leaning Center for Media and Democracy and obtained by National Journal. "The membership had been under review for some time and is now being canceled."

When asked if the decision was because of ALEC's conservative stance on climate change, the representative replied, "Not only [that] position, on gun control and voter rights as well." ALEC has historically been tied to pushing looser gun control and stricter voter identification laws, but says it no longer works on social policies.

Color the staff at The Economist confused. Writing on the current situation in Catalonia, they note:

A three-way game of brinkmanship between Mr Rajoy, Mr Mas and the separatist Catalan Republican Left (ERC) party that props up his government in Catalonia is creating uncertainty. Mr Rajoy has used the constitutional court to block the referendum, though it may take another five months to rule definitively that it is illegal. He offers little else beyond a readiness to talk. ERC proposes civil disobedience, an illegal referendum and, eventually, a unilateral declaration of independence. If it cannot have these, it wants an election that it is likely to win.

While the results are uncertain, the probability of a snap election is increasing daily. As is the collapse of CiU dominance of the Catalan regional politics, and the emergence of a form of polarized pluralism in the region as the political center flattens out, and the fringes rise. The term postmodern 1930s certainly springs to mind. Stage set.

human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. Note that 'territory' is one of the characteristics of the state. Specifically, at the present time, the right to use physical force is ascribed to other institutions or to individuals only to the extent to which the state permits it. The state is considered the sole source of the 'right' to use violence.

More detailed definitions exist, but all, at their core, fall back upon this basic definition. For better or worse, only states have a "license to kill." The moment that other groups attempt to take up this power for their own, the state is failing. The moment that they have, it seems far to say that the state has failed.

There is a low, but rising, rumble. Last week, GOP House Speaker John Boehner let loose the argument that all the US needs to do to free Europe from dependence on Russian gas imports is to export fracked gas.

Russia has been playing a much more intricate game than the United States in recent years. The resulting imbalance has created a growing threat to global stability, as evidenced last week by Vladimir Putin's invasion of neighboring Ukraine. The ability to turn the tables and put the Russian leader in check lies right beneath our feet, in the form of vast supplies of natural energy.

Cue the talking heads parroting the meme that the Obama administration is aiding and abetting our once, and again, Soviet Russian nemesis by keeping all that sweet fracked gas trapped in North America. Just one problem. Even a cursory examination of the facts reveals that the scenario envisioned by Boehner et al, the US replacing EU imports of Russian gas, isn't even a remote possibility. Let's lay out the facts of the case.

Inside the European Union, there are neither exports nor imports. If we are to believe the language of the European Commission, there are only dispatches and arrivals. Yet, this terminology obscures an important point. Intra-EU trade statistics show that Germans benefit from a persistent balance of trade surplus. (pgs. 184-187)

If you plot the data out on a map, a clear pattern emerges. German trade is most balanced with those countries closest to it in the European core, while the further into the periphery one goes the greater the trade deficit these countries have with Germany. (See below.)

So, should Germany stay, or should it go? In the end, I think that there is a case for Germany in Europe, but there are serious, recurring, issues that need to be addressed before this option is viable.

Thousands of Dutch cleaners, members of trade union FNV Bondenoten, are standing up to fight their invisibility in society. They have been on strike for more than 30 days to demand respect and fair pay on the job. The cleaners' work is important: it provides a healthy and clean atmosphere to executives, doctors, bankers and ministers.

The cleaners aren't asking for millions or great riches. They just want ordinary things, such as sick pay, enough time to do the job, security for timeworkers and a fair wage to take care of their families. Big, wealthy clients like Philips, ING, Ahold, Dutch government ministries, the tax authorities and universities expect miracles for impossibly cheap cleaning deals. FNV Bondgenoten members need your help.

Please support the cleaners and send a message to their bosses and the most important clients: Hans Simons the chairman of the empoyers' group, Anton Witte is the main negotiator for the employers and Norma van den Berg represents cleaning giant ISS in the negotiations. Hans Schelbergen is responsible for the cleaning contract at Philips, which cut 1.3 million euros from its cleaning budget while paying out 3 million euros to six executives. Peter Specker is responsible for the government cleaning contracting. The cleaners ask their friends around the globe to support their Uprising of the Invisible.

Let us never be silent or invisible anymore. The price of outsourcing is the same around the globe: it has negative effects on quality, health and prosperity. The cleaners of the Netherlands, who have roots in all the countries of the world, are standing up and speaking loud and clear: SCHOONGENOEG (Clean enough!)

As many of you now know, Spain is currently experiencing a people's movement similar to what happened in Egypt. People have occupied plazas in Madrid and other cities, demanding change. With regional elections coming on Sunday, the push has already began to have the police break the thing up. But I don't think this is the end. As a Spanish writer put it the "Tahrir" virus has come to Europe.

Where freedom doesn't exist it's neccesary to lose fear, it succeeded in Tunisia and Egypt, it's succeeding in Libya, Syria, and Yemen. It will succeed in more countries, Arab or not. Where there is freedom it's necessary to break the malaise, a conformity which has transformed (terrorized) citizens into consumers, some 100%.

Madrid isn't Tahrir, but the "virus" is the same: an abundance of youth without hope, doomed to a declining market modernized by cutting social rights and jobs, with the only prospect long-term trash contracts. There are thousands of stories of men and women who can't find a position, who suffer. No one speaks of them. The party line prevails, that of the others, of bureaucratese, of press conferences without questions, of the untouchables.

These forgotten tales, neglected, find resonance in social networks(Twitter: #15M; #nonosvamos, #spanishrevolution). As in Egypt: young, and not so young, mobilize themselves without organizations, without flags, without a sponsored-by, only because it is a right.

In the green north of Spain, the Basque region has emerged as a renewable energy powerhouse over the last decade. Although high population density, mountainous terrain, and a lack of appropriate building sites have limited renewable energy production in the region, a number of Spain's most dynamic green energy firms have set up a dynamic manufacturing base there. With the wind energy market growing saturated, these firms have turned to solar and wave power. In the latter market, there is an interesting project going on in the coastal city of Mutriku which incorporates wave energy into breakwaters.

As the diagram below explains, the constant splash of small waves is captured through the inclusion of air chambers within the breakwater. As the waves enter and exit the chamber they drive air in and out, and these changes in air pressure are utilized to drive Wells turbines.

Last week, news came out at the Spanish government was considering cuts in feed in tariffs (FITs) for renewable electricity. As I speculated then, it looks like solar is the problem. However it's not new solar thermal plants coming on line that look to be the problem. It's the myriad, tiny solar photovoltaic (PV) facilities across the country. The situation is to say the least a mess.

Yesterday, the minister for Industry, Miguel Sebastian, came out blaming FITs for increases in electric rates. The mess of it is that there's probably some truth to this because of the outsized portion of subsidies going to tiny PV facilities, however, as Jerome has reminded us, we know that FITs done right for commercial scale wind tend to lower rates.

The question is whether the solar bubble is going to kill FITs for new wind facilities, but there is hope.

Something of a spat is emerging in Spain over the issue of feed in tariffs for renewable electricity. Much of the concern centers around the idea that the current system is unsustainable, because projections show subsidies rising 32.5% between now and 2013. This rise is largely the product of a massive expansion in Spanish thermic solar capacity from 931 MW in 2010, to 2,470 MW in 2013.

The pictures help, but the different technologies are (from left to right) cogeneration, photovoltaic, thermic solar, wind, mini-hydro, and biomass. The blue line is subsidies in millions of euros, and the black numbers capacity in MWs. We can get the average feed in tariff from the numbers here.

I've been spending a lot of time lately looking at the sources of electricity production lately. I'm going to be finishing a dissertation on the political economy of wind energy development in Spain. And I've been wondering how the different countries of the EU stack up when it comes to electricity production. First things first, 55% of the electricity produced in the EU comes from fossil fuels, with coal(31%) and natural gas (22%) making up the lion's share of that.

While the share of coal should come as no surprise, because it is so prevalent in the region, the size natural gas-fired production should be. Given the amount of complaining about the Russian "energy weapon" that goes on, you would think that the least that could be done would be an effort to move away from this, not toward it.

Yesterday, the FT picked up comments by the Spanish development minister, Jose Blanco.

Blanco denounces plot against Spain and the euro

While the economic vice, Elena Salgado, has traveled to London today to appease the spirits of investors, Development Minister, Jose Blanco, accused the "financial speculators" of orchestrating a plot against the euro and the Spanish market. "Nothing is happening in the world, including foreign newspaper publishers, is casual or innocent," said Blanco. The deputy general secretary of the PSOE denounced an "attack against the euro and the existence of" somewhat murky maneuvers "to avoid scrutiny of financial markets.

"Everything serves a purpose. The apocalyptic comments on the economic situation of Spain do not benefit our country. There are an attack on the euro and should be given an answer," Blanco said.

Jerome has suggested that I post this as a diary of its own. So here we go.

One of the great strengths I see in the concept of the Anglo Disease is that it allows for the Left to critique Neo-liberalism on its own terms. It attacks the contradictions supporting the system, so that having been demystified, the system can be remedied from within.

Although the Anglo Disease is an imminent critique of neo-liberal capitalism, what it reveals is that the market that neo-liberals take to be omnipotent and the root of all social phenomena is not once, but twice embedded. First, the market is embedded in social structure. So that when it pressed to far, society strikes back. Second, society and market alike are embedded in a natural context. So that, for example, the market does not make petroleum. We as a species are capable of altering social structure, even if it is with great difficulty. The natural context, however, is largely fixed. The market can't make oil. But, what I want to do here is lay out the Anglo Disease in the language of economics.

Earlier this week David Sirota wrote what I think is the best column I've ever seen on an important topic in American politics: the role of class in American politics and how the GOP has been able to capture the votes of working class whites. Let's be clear, it wasn't grand strategy by the Republicans that resulted in the white working class exiting the New Deal Coalition. It was the utter arrogance of the gang of liberal elitists that have seized the mainstream part of the American Left from the working class.

Movies may be fiction, but they represent the attitudes of the media and Hollywood elite who shape pop culture. In the difference between how Ed Sadlowski and Will Hunting were treated for their beliefs, we see one of the least examined shifts in how work is presented in popular discourse -- from both blue-collar and white-collar jobs being depicted as respectable ends, to blue-collar work portrayed as respectable inasmuch as it helps the laborer reach the venerated professional class.

This is the profound but subtle message of the last scene of another movie, Office Space, in which Peter Gibbons quits his suit-and-tie cubicle job and realizes his dream is to work construction. That we are trained to see this decision as rare only shows how deep the elitists' rabbit hole goes.

The South Ossetian government is claiming that the Georgian government employed mercenaries in their attack on the city of Tskhinvali.

Authorities in the unrecognized republic of South Ossetia claim that dark-skinned mercenaries took part in the attack on Tskhinvali, reports RIA Novosti, citing representative of the South Ossetian president in Russia Dmitry Medoev. He said there were bodies of many Georgian soldiers on the streets on Tskhinvali. "There were blacks among the dead, who were probably either mercenaries or instructors in the Georgian armed forces," Medoev said.

We should all be very worried. The small former Soviet Republic of Georgia has been something of apt pupil of our dear President, and has been very willing to embrace our government as a means to grow closer to the "West." Chief among the actions taken by Georgia to curry American favor was the decision to provide troops for the Iraq war. There are 2,000 Georgian troops in Iraq, and now they are urgently needed in their home country. And the US has agreed to take them there.

First of all we need to remove 1,000 guys from here within 96 hours, after that the rest of the guys," Colonel Bondo Maisuradze told The Times this morning.

"The US will provide us with the transportation," he added.

Georgia had said initially that it planned to withdraw just half of its contingent in Iraq.

The US military said that all transportation options were being explored, without confirming that it would provide the aircraft.

My basic argument is that America's oil addiction has less to do with inefficient engines, than with an economic system that promotes conspicous consumption as a means to indicate social status.

America is dangerously dependent on foreign oil.

In 2007, the United States imported around 13.44 mbd (million barrels daily) from other countries. This represents an almost 2% reduction over the preceding year. Nonetheless, oil represents a huge economic Achilles Heel for the US.

At the current $145.29/barrel
price for crude on the spot market, a year's worth of oil imports would cost the US $713 billion. Or 5.2% of 2007 US nominal GDP. Or almost three times our trade deficit with the People's Republic of China. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is bound to impact the US economy.

I'm going to be lazy today, and err to the use of graphics to make my point. Much of the current energy debate in the US centers on how inefficient our motor vehicles are compared to the rest of the planet. Look they say at the following graph that shows just how inefficient our vehicles are. This is the average fuel economy for various national fleets.